2. Academic Validation
  3. Mechanistic insights into consumption of the food additive xanthan gum by the human gut microbiota

Mechanistic insights into consumption of the food additive xanthan gum by the human gut microbiota

  • Nat Microbiol. 2022 Apr;7(4):556-569. doi: 10.1038/s41564-022-01093-0.
Matthew P Ostrowski # 1,  Sabina Leanti La Rosa # 2 3,  Benoit J Kunath 2,  Andrew Robertson 4,  Gabriel Pereira 1,  Live H Hagen 2,  Neha J Varghese 5,  Ling Qiu 1,  Tianming Yao 6,  Gabrielle Flint 1,  James Li 7,  Sean P McDonald 7,  Duna Buttner 1,  Nicholas A Pudlo 1,  Matthew K Schnizlein 1,  Vincent B Young 1 8,  Harry Brumer 7,  Thomas M Schmidt 1,  Nicolas Terrapon 9 10,  Vincent Lombard 9 10,  Bernard Henrissat 11 12,  Bruce Hamaker 6,  Emiley A Eloe-Fadrosh 5,  Ashootosh Tripathi 4,  Phillip B Pope 13 14,  Eric C Martens 15
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
  • 2 Faculty of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway.
  • 3 Faculty of Biosciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway.
  • 4 Life Sciences Institute: Natural Products Discovery Core, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
  • 5 DOE Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA.
  • 6 Department of Food Science and Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
  • 7 Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
  • 8 Department of Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases Division, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
  • 9 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille Univ, Marseille, France.
  • 10 Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement, Marseille, France.
  • 11 Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
  • 12 Technical University of Denmark, DTU Bioengineering, Lyngby, Denmark.
  • 13 Faculty of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway. [email protected].
  • 14 Faculty of Biosciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway. [email protected].
  • 15 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. [email protected].
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 35365790 DOI: 10.1038/s41564-022-01093-0
Abstract

Processed foods often include food additives such as xanthan gum, a complex polysaccharide with unique rheological properties, that has established widespread use as a stabilizer and thickening agent. Xanthan gum's chemical structure is distinct from those of host and dietary Polysaccharides that are more commonly expected to transit the gastrointestinal tract, and little is known about its direct interaction with the gut microbiota, which plays a central role in digestion of Other dietary fibre Polysaccharides. Here we show that the ability to digest xanthan gum is common in human gut microbiomes from industrialized countries and appears contingent on a single uncultured bacterium in the family Ruminococcaceae. Our data reveal that this primary degrader cleaves the xanthan gum backbone before processing the released oligosaccharides using additional Enzymes. Some individuals harbour Bacteroides intestinalis that is incapable of consuming polymeric xanthan gum but grows on oligosaccharide products generated by the Ruminococcaceae. Feeding xanthan gum to germfree mice colonized with a human microbiota containing the uncultured Ruminococcaceae supports the idea that the additive xanthan gum can drive expansion of the primary degrader Ruminococcaceae, along with exogenously introduced B. intestinalis. Our work demonstrates the existence of a potential xanthan gum food chain involving at least two members of different phyla of gut bacteria and provides an initial framework for understanding how widespread consumption of a recently introduced food additive influences human microbiomes.

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